Wealth Redistribution

Being afraid of turning into a liberal commie bastard, I make sure to watch a lot of Fox News and listen to a lot of conservative talk radio.  Of course, I do this with an intensely critical mind.  So one phrase I hear a lot is this boogie man called "wealth redistribution" - that Obama is going to steal money from one group and give it to another.  But I'm not entirely sure what they mean by it.  As far as I see, it can mean either:

1) The phrase rings of propaganda that I'm more than a little used to hearing in the regimes of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.  In at least design "wealth redistribution" is supposed to take from a needlessly wealthy minority and give to a poor minority.  It didn't work.  Of course, in those regimes, wealth was indeed redistributed:  one group murdered and stole from the original wealthy class and the peasants and took it themselves.  The rich died, the poor starved, and the Party got incredibly rich.  So what the conservative pundits are talking about here is Obama taking over in an dictatorial regime that will essentially steal everything for himself.

2) Or perhaps its supposed to simply mean that Obama's policies are designed to indirectly sap wealth from one group so as to give it to another poorer group through government aid and benefits.  The health care bill, in a horribly over-simplifying way, does this.  If you're a libertarian and hate the idea of the government getting to decide just what you're allowed to own, either directly or indirectly, then you're definitely going to hate this one.  There's definitely a long Constitutional argument here for why the government shouldn't be involved in this sort of thing.

So I think that the pundits are referring to option two.  If its option one, then they're completely insane.  Obama may indeed be a ruthless bastard out to get as much power as he's able, but he'll never succeed in any Stalinist schemes (if he ever starts I'll be sure to tell you guys once I'm safely far away in New Zealand).  Option two actually represents a realistic policy our government might take, so it actually merits a discussion.

I don't understand why wealth redistribution is such a terrible thing.  Let's just look at what percentage of the US economy the wealthiest 10% currently owns.  As of 2008, studies say that its just about 24.3%.  The top 10% owns around 70% to 80% of all the wealth in the nation.  So ultimately you realize that the top 1% actually collectively has more wealth than the bottom 90%.  Add this to the fact that 1/5th of Americans have no assets at all, either they simply living paycheck to paycheck or are horribly in debt.  I don't think this is all a recipe for a healthy economy.

Maybe its all a good thing:  I guess when people have tons of capital, it does mean they have a good ability to start up their own entrepreneurial enterprises or easily support them.  Also our society still remains quite open, even if it is stratified.  Yeah, if you're born poor you're likely to stay poor.  But most Americans at least start out with enough of a chance to join the "big boys club" of the super rich, and it is indeed an incentive to work hard and create wealth to boost the economy.  Or perhaps there's no sociological explanation at all:  these people are just the best of the best at what they do and so have created all this wealth from scratch, and so should enjoy the bountiful crop they've planted (I'd like to believe this).

But when you get right down to it, right now people are losing their homes.  People are falling apart and boiling in debt.  Millions are unemployed and so called "fiscally responsible" politicians are refusing to give them benefits.  When a small group has so much while so many have nothing, it seems only natural to me.

Am I crazy?  I don't know.